Software defined networking (SDN) is an approach to using open protocols, such as OpenFlow, to apply globally aware software control at the edges of the network to access network switches and routers that typically would use closed and proprietary firmware. In the world of software-defined networking, the focus has been on the data center. SDN in the data center has enabled integration with automated systems, allowing enterprises to build virtual networks, provide micro-segmentation, and integrate service chaining. That functionality has demonstrated SDN's value and brings networking a step closer to the automated world enjoyed by virtualization professionals for many years.
However, the data center is not the only part of networking that could use a software-defined hand. Enterprise wide area networks (WANs) are sources of cost and complexity. Stitching together remote offices via a provider's MPLS network is highly functional—with L2 or L3 connectivity options and guaranteed privacy and quality of service—but also expensive. Broadband options lack the rich functionality of a provider's MPLS cloud, but they grant much more bandwidth for the money spent.
The emergence of Software Defined Networking-Wide Area Network (SDN-WAN) technologies is creating a host of new features on data transport services such as the ability to redirect and re-route services dynamically and more flexible traffic engineering. Much of the industry effort in this area, thus far, has been focused on provisioning of these services using SDN technologies. While this helps in simplifying management and programmatic provisioning of services, the traffic engineering approaches used are “static”, in that, the paths are determined and provisioned at initialization, and do not change based on actual traffic. This leads to operational inefficiencies in the network, because the traffic dynamicity can be quite high. Typically, to provision statically would mean accounting for the worst-case scenario which leads to over-provisioning of traffic engineering links. In addition, current approaches provide no direct feedback from the observed traffic back to the traffic engineering application, and therefore, no way to account for changing traffic patterns in provisioning of traffic engineering paths. Also, once the paths are provisioned in current approaches, there is no way to change it depending on the actual observed traffic.
Accordingly, there is a need for systems, apparatus, and methods that improve upon conventional approaches including the improved methods, system and apparatus provided hereby.